Shadows of the Night

(Author's Note: Prereader: Moon_Fire thank you)

           Canterlot, the city of lights. Two specific lights to be exact, the sun and the moon, well, more the keepers of their orbit, but it sure sounds less romantic when you say it that way. Caligo only gave off a wave of confusion at my whimsical thoughts, and when he questioned me on just who they were directed at and I said no one at all, he mumbled something about how it was too soon. Whatever, me and no one go way back, we’re good buds. And now that I was in the city Caligo said that the pull was stronger than ever, and that, surprise, surprise, it felt like it was being held in the direction of the palace.

         The moon shone down from the sky and gave a silvery light that suffused the cobbled streets in a small glow. The houses were a bit like Ponyville’s but with more brick and stonework, as well as being two stories high, on average, thus giving me plenty of shadows to use while I went up to the castle.

         Now was the time to get serious, I couldn’t go in half-cocked and expect things to go well. For one, I was a creature of darkness, so there was already going to be the prejudice of automatically being labeled evil, and this would only be magnified in the town of the sovereign of light, something that Caligo had confirmed while I’d made my way here. And if they had gone to all the trouble to lock this “Somnium” up, then they obviously believed she was beyond redemption since she’d been hit with the friendship laser of the Elements of Harmony, she was obviously considered to be quite corrupted. I really hope Caligo knows what he’s talking about being able to fix Somnium.

         ‘I do.’

         Right, thought share.

         In short, no shadowporting into the castle, don’t want to accidentally run into any guards or worse, one of the alicorns. I wrapped myself in darkness, becoming invisible, and began to make my way through the town, shadow striding further into uptown, rather than down town as the city was built on a slope working in towards the mountain it rested be. The town became even more extravagant the further I went in, and while they didn’t seem to have mastered making many-storied houses, it seemed that a three story house, or mansion in many cases, was about the pinnacle one could reach before an actual castle.

         Once outside the actual castle, of which I hadn’t paid much attention to when watching the show, except for the Russian-esque type domes (which are freekin’ awesome), I was a little surprised at just how little defense there was. Not to say there were no patrols, in fact, I clearly saw a handful walking a few of the walls, just that the walls were so… low, and ornamental looking. Though I suppose when you have about a third of the species who can fly, building high walls isn’t too big a deal, nor if another third might just as well cast some spell and get through the wall just as easy. In fact, now that I was thinking about it, it would be a greater folly to make the castle look like a fort, all these low walls gave a great deal of visibility from many of the windows of the actual castle building itself.

         ‘No time to mess around, get your head in the game.’

         I needed to find out where they were keeping Somnium. I took a deep breath, and set off to search the castle.

         The castle itself was huge. At least in comparison to what the show let us see. Though it wasn’t quite that spectacular, white walls and royal red and purple carpeting festooned the floors, and when I didn’t pass a window then there was some painting on the wall, or tapestry, or some sort of vase or some such pottery on display with lighted torches every so often where the moon wasn’t lighting the halls as they cast about flickering shadows. I silently passed many a servant and caretaker keeping maintenance on these things, those carpets were really soft, though I suppose if they weren’t there then clip-clop of walking would get a little frustrating with all the echoes that were produced from the high ceiling. I even passed by a few guards, who when they weren’t wearing a bored expression, gained through years of nothing ever having happened on patrol, were chatting it up with a servant, even going so far as to stop walking.

         All the while Caligo became more and more eager, he repeatedly told me that Somnium was “so very close now” that eventually I got fed up with it and told him to simply point me in the right direction, it was a pretty big castle after all.

         Finally, after about an hour of wandering, and re-wandering, the twisted passages of this cavernous castle we arrived, or at least Caligo said that we were close enough that he could now feel the space that was being warped and that Somnium was definitely close by it as well.

         Trying to distract myself from the waves of positive emotion emanating from Caligo, I began to take a closer look the room we now occupied. As I walked down it, the room being a large corridor, I noticed the colored light that streamed through the glass from the moon outside. In fact the whole hall was festooned with giant stained glass windows depicting great acts done by pony kind. I was in the chamber hall of the Elements of Harmony, or at least the resting place for the jewelry. I decided to just walk the rest of the way so I could enjoy the awesome glass-work. I’m not normally one to say this about art, of any kind, but it was quite amazing, who ever had done them was not only a master of their craft, but a master artist as well. The each window seemed to emanate hope and hold whispers of inner strength for the ponies who accomplished these acts as well as those who looked upon them.

         It was time to blow this pop stand.

         While I wasn’t one for trying to teleport to places I’m not familiar with, I did remember that the room past those ornate, star shaped, jewel festooned, doors was a flat floor, with a few feet of room around the pedestal and a door that was only about a foot thick, I could do this. I called out to the darkness, its familiar caress flowed around me as I pictured myself moving forward, feeling the connection to the shadows of the dark room beyond. I let myself flow ahead through the darkness, ready to find this ‘other half’, and was once again greeted with a familiar friend… pain.

         I literally shot back from the door liked I’d just hit the end of my rope and bungeed back. Sparks of residual energy sparked along my shield and my clothes. It definitely wasn't simple electricity, though the orange color was also a bit of a tip off. I could hear the stomp of many hooves quickly coming to my prone and twitchy location. Guess they upgraded the security system on that vault so no one could simply teleport in there and take them out again.

         My head was still ringing, but I definitely wasn’t lucky enough to pass out, apparently my body wanted me to share its deliciousness with me, but I was probably just building up some sort of tolerance to pain with my new boosted recovery system.

         I was just getting to my feet when the doors to the hall busted open with, I don’t know a platoon? Squad?... a lot of royal guard ponies, both winged and earth came crashing through with a few splinters of rock flying through the air in their wake. This impressive display paled, however, from the flash of blue tinted light that followed from in front of me where four royal unicorn guards stood, two to each side, of Princess Luna, in all her flowing maned glory. I also noticed that Twilight’s brother, I couldn’t place his name, being a little frazzled at the moment, was to the direct right of her. I might have even given thoughts to how cool this all was, if I wasn’t being given a particularly harsh death glare from Luna herself.

         “We dost not know how thou hast escaped your prison Discord,” she roared in a particularly deafening Royal Canterlot voice, “but you shall not, again, take away the Elements of Harmony so as to reign chaos upon Our land unopposed!”

         As flattered as I was at being put on the same level as Discord (shut your gob, Discord is best pony), that small thought was too far behind the massive wall of ‘oh s**t oh s**t oh s**t oh S**T, She’s going to explode me and then send me to the moon after she petrifies my remains and grinds them to dust even further!!!’. I was just about to beg for my life, when Caligo decided to act.

         You ever have a large pimple on your face, I mean, a REALLY big one, and once you’re alone (you never burst the REALLY big ones in public), you get your fingers together and just push all those nasty oils and ‘you don’t want to think about what else’ out? You know how you can feel all of that coming out of you, every last disgusting drop? Yeah? Well that’s roughly what it felt like, except it wasn’t just a single pore, it was my entire face, and it felt a lot more gooey, as Caligo pushed his white mask of a face out and hardened as it hit the air. Suffice to say, it definitely wasn’t tasty.

         Taking command of the shadows, which flickered in the light of five glowing horns, everypony tensed as my body slowly rose up, while I just sat in the back of my mind working on not losing control of what passed for my rational thought. A deep laugh, something I thought impossible for my tenor voice, erupted from the mask covering my mouth as the darkness formed a twister of shadow. Dark phantoms flitted about the cylinder of darkness as my hand slowly rose from my side and shot a beam of pure black at Princess Luna. She threw up an energy shield and cringed when she saw the shield did nothing to slow it down as the insubstantial wave of darkness passed through her. And with that distraction the shadows quickly consumed me and I found my body standing outside the city of Canterlot and began to regain control of it as Caligo began to ooze back into me. (that didn’t come out right… neither did that)

         'I believe a change of tactics is in order sir.'

         “Indeed, but what are we supposed to do?” My voice quickly turning from shout to whisper, as I tried to calm myself down from having almost becoming a smear on a very expensive rug.

         'I’d suggest integrating ourselves with the royal workings of the castle and become hirelings.'

         “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly soldier material. My shadow puppetry may be decent, but even if we could get onto the royal guard we’d eventually have to come in physical contact with someone, be it sparing or just some friendly smack.”

         'I did not mean the work of a soldier. I meant work as a servant. In my experience, they have the unassuming quality of becoming one with the background, to the point where none but the most deluded and paranoid will acknowledge their presence. They are, by far, one of THE best sources of information of the workings in a castle. It should be a simple enough matter to become something of a curator or cleaner of some sort.'

         That was a pretty slick idea, in fact I rather liked it, though one thing was still bothering me. What exactly had Caligo done back by the entrance to the Elements of Harmony? Upon questioning him on what had happened, he informed me that he’d merely taken over my body during the previous crisis, of which I had completely frozen up in. The only difference from last time was that the bond between us had gotten stronger over time. Soon we’d even be able to flat on merge together. As Power Rangers as that sounded, it was bad enough that I had to share room with someone else in my head, and now he’s telling me we could merge together? I was just glad it’s optional.

***

         It had been a long day. I’d been in trance-mode for a while, but luckily somepony or other always managed to walk by whatever alley me and Caligo were squatting, leaving me rather anxious till the evening. I figured if we wanted a night job, then we should go in at night to do so. Especially now that Luna was back things really had to have been picking up, she did have a thousand years of politics, laws, and other drudgery to catch up on after all. Not to mention getting her own set of guards, or at the very least different armor for the recruits that at least had to have been transferred over from Celestia’s division, she wouldn’t leave a sibling unprotected now would she.  But once the sun was finally brought down it was time to make my move.

         Now, when it comes to being extraordinarily clever, I can only make claims to that about… oh, once every three or four months. But right now that wasn’t what I needed, thank goodness. No, what I needed to do was be direct, I wanted a job. So, best way to do that would be to simply walk up and ask for one. I wasn’t bothered by any life threatening situation at the moment, so I was able to put my time and make a slick shadow-pony to act as my face for the world, so I just ended up making the same black haired unicorn pony I did back at that tavern in Ponyville, hey, don’t fix what ain’t broke.

Shadow puppet completed, my real body hidden safely within the three-dimensional shadow, I made my way over the small stone bridge, that curved over the mountain stream, to the castle gates, came up to the grand front doors… and turned to the right, and went down the smaller, still stoned, path to the servants entrance.